New posts

There are several new posts at www.chadandcharissa.com

Please check it out!

More Halloween

More pictures of Jacob in his Chicken costume at www.chadandcharissa.com

Halloween and Kansas fun!

We went to Kansas to visit with Chad's family. We left on Halloween and went Trick or Treating when we got there. We also went to a place called The Arboretum, which is like a giant park. Here are a few pictures from Halloween and The Arboretum...

For more of the story about the trip and more pictures go to www.chadandcharissa.com

Jacob's first birthday!

Here are a few pictures from Jacob's first birthday...
There will be more and the story up at www.chadandcharissa.com soon!

The cake I made! In the shape of a 1 and with a volcano and a stegosaurus!

Really excited that Aunt Sara came over! (Sara is my best friend)

Carrying the monkey hand puppet Aunt Sara got him. And show casing the shirt Millie from church made (it says "Buy me Presents on the back")

Fun with new toys in mommy's lap! (I love those moments when he wants to be on my lap!)

Exploring the big gift from mom and dad (Laugh and Learn Kitchen)

Don't for get to check out www.chadandcharissa.com for more, I hope to have it updated this weekend.

Ugh!

So I can't figure out how to do comments on the www.chadandcharissa.com website. But I really like the creativity I get to put into it over this blogspot blog. So I will put links to the new website when I have new posts and try to do short posts here too.

So if anyone knows how to add comments to a blog created in iWeb without uploading to MobileMe please please let me know!

Until I can figure the comments out...

Here are a couple pictures of our pumpkins...

More at www.chadandcharissa.com

New blog!!!

For our new blog, as of 10/10/09, please click this address....

www.chadandcharissa.com

Thanks...See you at the new site!

Dimples and Curls Photography

We have a friend at church who does professional photography of babies, kids, and families. She did a photo session for us in the beginning of August. It was amazing! And I highly recommend her especially if you have kids and want incredible pictures of them. Just let me know and I will get you in contact with her or you check out her website dimplesandcurlsphotography.com .

Here are some of the pictures from the session. We actually got about 55 pictures, but here some favorites!

A little walkin'!

Jacob is walking as much as he can, but he gets going too fast and falls down. The most he's done is about 15-20 steps! Sadly we didn't it on video, but here is some video of some shorter distances!

Enjoy!

Spaghetti

Rocking Chairs

Chad's parents and my parents both had very similar rocking chairs when we were little. Our parents took pictures of us in the rocking chairs when we were babies. Well, now that we have Jacob and my parents still have that rocking chair we got a picture of him in it.

Here's Chad at about 7 months old...

Here's me around 13-14 months old...

Here's Jacob at 11 months old...

I just thought these were so fun! I should put them in a frame!

Random Pictures

So since I recently found the memory card reader and card adapter for my tiny phone memory card from the last 3 months...here are a few pictures of Jacob!!!

This is from July, Jacob is in his laundry basket and loving it!
These two pictures are from our July trip to Pittsburgh. My cousin Beth gave Jacob an apple!

This is from a July trip to the park.
I asked Chad to go change Jacob's clothes after some type of messy incident and he came back like this! Chad's Pitt Basketball shirt and my George Fox shorts! (July)
Uncle Jeremy got this Army shirt for Jacob and an Army bear after he completed his Leadership Training Course. It's a little big for Jacob, but he'll fit in it soon! (August)
This is Jacob with a mouth full of toast and being silly in his highchair! (August)
This is one of the many turtles we find on our morning walks. Jacob really wanted to hold it! (August)

In August, our friend from college, Dave, came to visit and we went to the zoo. Jacob liked this giraffe sculpture.
Jacob's favorite thing...climbing the stairs. (August)
Just a cute picture in overalls in August!
And here are pictures form this month...It's getting harder to get clear pictures since jacob is constantly moving! So sorry for the blurry pics!

Jacob is a climbing boy! He climbed on top of the back of the couch...crazy!This is a chair that was my dad's. It will eventually be the time out chair, like it was for my brother and I. Jacob was sitting in it, but he decided to get out right as I took the shot!

Jacob is ready to cheer on the Steelers in an outfit that was my brother's!
Jacob has 2 stuffed animals that he randomly carries around... a lion and a dinosaur.
This picture you can just see the lion's mane, but Jacob really likes him!
Here's the dinosaur...I don't know what's with Jacob's face, he was really happy!

Book shelves + Jacob = Mess

First of all, I'm sorry for lack of pictures lately. I lost my memory card reader and then found it and now I'm not sure where it is again. But I found and used different one so I have a couple pictures for all my readers (though I think that might just be my mother-in-law and aunt).

Jacob loves to crawl out to the living room/library and pull books of the book shelves! Of course, then I have to put them back in alphabetical order by author. But it's really funny. I have a video that I hope to edit and put up as well.

Here a couple pictures of him caught in the act. He is either going to love reading or want to be involved in demolition (which he is already good at!).

Oh and Jake currently has a cold, pray that it gets resolved really soon.

First Steps!

Jake has made his first few steps the last few days! He's not really walking yet, but he's getting more confident in not holding on to things! I can stand him up in front of me and he will walk 3-5 steps to get to me! Today he was holding onto our papasan chair and was a little bit away sitting on the floor and he let go and walked 3 steps to me.

So any day now he will realize he can really walk!

My life is about to get crazier! Whoohoo!

Fall?

The last two mornings on our walks, Jake, Morgan, and I have enjoyed the smallest taste of Fall weather. I love the Fall. It is my favorite season with Winter at a very close second. I think I've posted my reasons before. I have greatly enjoyed the just warm enough in the sun and cool in the shade feeling! However, we live in North Carolina so I am not getting hopes up that this will last and get cooler soon...I think it's supposed to be back in the mid to upper 80s next week.

But this glimpse of the coming Fall has brightened my spirits! I can't wait!

Snoops

Today, my family dog, Snoops, went to doggy heaven. She was born February 3, 1996 in Pennsylvania. My dad and I brought her home to our house in New Jersey in April that year. She lived a long life for a Basset Hound, 13 and a half years. She was a good dog, well except when she was stealing food from the counters. She stole and ate pizza crusts, loaves of bread, meat, anything she could from the counters. She loved to try to get into the trash. She would come running the second she heard a bite being taken out of an apple. She had a beautiful basset howl. She loved to sleep and eat! She curled up beside me in my bed to help calm my nerves the night before I went to college for the first time, before I went to Africa, and before I went out to Oregon for college. She was a woman's best friend! She will be dearly missed. We love you Snoops.

Here is a typical picture of her from this past year belly up soaking in the sun!

Short little story

Sorry it's been a while. Quick update...Jake has 2 teeth.

Our awesome friend Dave from college, George Fox University, came to visit for a few days this week. He lives in north eastern Washington (the state) and rode his motorcycle to Colorado to visit Travis and Eva-Lynn (from GFU) and then to Arkansas to visit Dane (from GFU too) and then to see us! He is then going to NY, Milwaukie, Colorado again, then California for Dane's wedding. It was so great to see him. Such a blessing to see a close friend who we haven't seen in a long time!

We decided to all go to the zoo. It was a lot of fun. We just walked around talking, looking at animals, and Dave took pictures. The trip was pretty normal until we were standing the African bird dome thing. We were standing right at a railing that looked down at a little pond while Dave took pictures of a Scarlet Ibis. Chad was holding Jake when...Jake grabbed his hat and trew it over the railing into the water! We stood there trying to figure out what to do. There were signs everywhere saying "DO NOT THROW THINGS IN THE WATER!" Well, Jacob can't read! I took Jake and Chad went over the railing and retreived the hat! It was pretty funny though. Jake had been the hat all day and had not touched it at all until the exact moment when it would make the most trouble!

Anyway, we had a blast with Dave and hope to somehow see more of our friends from college soon...we don't have plans to go to see them, but we desperately want to!

I will try to post some more pictures soon.

Pittsburgh Trip and Jake update

My dad, mom, Jake and I headed to Pittsburgh a few weeks ago. That's where my grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins all live. We had a really good time, the highlight was definitely heading into Pittsburgh for a Just Ducky Tour and then lunch with Aunt Patty, my cousin Beth and Levi, my mom, and Jake. We had a lot of fun.The whole trip was great. I love my family, I just wish that Chad could have come too.

Ok so updates on Jake...He has gone from army crawling to real belly off the floor crawling and is moving everywhere. Not to mention if he thinks he pull up to standing on it he will try and usually succeed. He walks along furniture so well that I wouldn't be surprised if he soon lets go and walks on his own! He is a busy little boy. Here are some pictures from our first trip to the playground!
He just recently got his first tooth! It's his bottom right front tooth. I have yet to get a picture of it.

He had his 9 month check up and is in the 50th percentile on height and weight. He is also starting to transition from smooth baby food to chunkier foods and finger foods. We are also working on using a cup, and I think he does better with a real cup as opposed to a sippy cup.

It is just amazing watching him grow. We need to get a video of him walking and crawling, hopefully we can get that soon.

The Iced Tea incident of 2009 and top baby stuff

Well, yesterday I attempted making iced tea. I have done it before with success; however, yesterday I ended up in the ER with 2nd degree burns on my upper left thigh! How it happened... I boiled the water in my electric kettle and then went to pour the water into the pitcher with the tea bag in it. What I didn't know was that the pitcher was crystal and not tempered glass, I also didn't know that crystal explodes with that kind of heat. I quickly found those things out as I screamed and began to tear off my clothes with the burning water on them. This caused a chain reaction of Chad putting Jake on the floor (who promptly began screaming as well), Chad getting ice and my mom throwing water on me. Once things calmed down Chad got Jake and ran a cold bath. Mom put ice on my leg as I cried/shook from pain and then I sat in the cold tub for about an hour with little relief. That's when we went to the ER to find out that I had 2nd degree burns. DON'T PUT HOT WATER IN ANY TYPE OF GLASS!!! I'm ok now, just a little pain and a wrapped up leg. I go to my doctor tomorrow for an evaluation.

Ok onto a better note... My mom said that I should post my top 5 baby items that we have used. In no particular order here they are.

Our stroller, the Baby Trend Expedition. It's a jogging stroller that came with an infant car seat. It is awesome. We have taken it on a ton of walks and it's still doing great. It folds up well and fits in the trunk of my car.The Kiddopotamus sun shade. This is a UV protected stretchy thing that attaches to the stroller to add more coverage than the shade that is on the stroller. In sunny NC, I was tired of putting sunscreen on Jake every time I took a walk (which is almost everyday)...with the extra shade thing he is covered and can enjoy the stroller ride with no risk of sun burn!

The sleep sack. It's like a fleece sleeping bag/vest. It's basically a wearable blanket and Jake wears it every night over his jammies. He's all snuggly warm and sleeps right through the night.

The solid food feeder. It looks kinda like a pacifier, but instead of the silicone sucky part there is a mesh bag thing that you put raw fruit in and the baby can chew/gum it with no choking hazards. Jake loves cantaloupe in it.
Our high chair. I have blogged about it before. It has all the features of a full sized high chair, but it straps onto a regular dining chair. Such a space saver. Oh and it turns into a booster seat too.

So, that's it. I hope everyone has a great day!